“You’re small,” Father had taught him, “and if you show no aggression, your enemies will not expect you to be bold. Most adult men will be stronger than you, but you’ll be stronger than they expect a child to be. Whatever action you take must be the final action, for you’ll get no second chance to surprise the same man.”

The handle of the spoon was narrow enough for lock-picking, if he could figure out a way to keep it. Was there anything else? There were pens and other writing tools on shelves, but none of these would be strong enough, except the trimming knife, and there was no chance anyone would let him come near it.

He was mentally inventorying his clothing to see if anything would do the job when suddenly Talisco shouted, “We’re done with the food!” His voice was like a sledgehammer in that small room—Rigg could certainly understand how he got his nickname. “Come get the plates before this boy steals the spoon to pick the lock!”

So I’m not as subtle as I thought I was, Rigg said silently. Or perhaps it’s a common trick.

The door opened and two soldiers came in. They stood at the door, watching, as a crewman gathered up the bowls and spoons.

“I need to pee,” said Rigg.

“We’ll bring you a jar,” said one of the soldiers.

“Oh, that’s good, I’ll splash all over my hand,” said Rigg. He raised his manacled hand as far as Talisco would let him. “Do you think I’m going to jump into the water fastened to him? Just let me pee over the side.”

The soldiers looked at him, then followed the crewman through the door and locked it again behind them.

“So you’ve decided just how I’m going to kill you, is that it?” asked Talisco.

“If you want to kill me and yourself by falling into the river with irons on, go ahead. But if you’re going to kill me later in some other way, I’d rather die with an empty bladder.”

The clasp of his belt was the only possibility—the tongue of it was hard enough iron. But was it long enough? Could he unfasten it one-handed?—for he assumed that Talisco, under water, would prevent him from being able to use both hands. Could he then use it to pick the lock without dropping the belt? Because there was no chance he’d find it again, in the murk of the river.

After a few minutes, the soldiers came back in and left the door standing open. Then they stepped outside.

“You’re a royal all right,” muttered Talisco as they stood up. “Think you’re going to control everything, even your own assassination.”

As they passed through the door, one soldier took Rigg firmly by the free arm and the other held Talisco. Other soldiers stood by to watch. They were determined that there’d be no escape attempt this time.

As if I wanted to escape from the boat, thought Rigg. Didn’t Father tell me to find my sister? You’re taking me where I want to go. The only escape I want is from this assassin. “He’s planning to kill me, you know,” said Rigg softly to the soldier holding him. “If we have an accident, you can be sure it was murder.”

The soldier said nothing, and Talisco’s body shuddered in silent laughter. “Do you think I’m the only one wants you dead?” he murmured.

“Um,” said Rigg aloud to the soldier holding him. “How do you propose that I open my pants? If I’m just going to pee all over myself I could have stayed inside.”

In answer, the soldier—never relaxing his grip—forced Rigg’s left hand down toward his crotch. There Rigg reached under his overshirt and one-handedly unfastened the belt of his trousers. They were loose enough that they dropped from his waist—but by spreading his legs widely apart, Rigg kept them from dropping right to the deck.

“He doesn’t even have a butt,” one of the rivermen jested.

“Silence,” said a voice that Rigg knew. General Citizen—so he, too, had come to watch Rigg pee.

The soldier on Talisco’s side asked him, “Aren’t you going to pee, too?”

“I don’t need to.”

“Come on, this is your chance, we’re not going to do this again for hours.”

“I don’t need to,” said Talisco again, a little more softly and grimly, and the soldier took the hint.

Rigg tugged on his right hand, trying to reach it toward his crotch. Talisco yanked it back. “Use your left!”

“I’m right-handed!” Rigg shouted back. “I can’t aim with my left!”

“It’s the river!” shouted Talisco. “You can’t miss it!”

“I don’t want to get it all over my clothes!” Rigg shouted, letting his voice rise a little higher in pitch, so he sounded more like a little boy.

“Royal bastard,” muttered Talisco, letting Rigg drag their manacled hands down toward his crotch.

“Probably right,” Rigg murmured back. Then he deliberately aimed a stream of urine onto the back of Talisco’s hand.

Talisco’s reflex was quick and unthinking. With a roar he snatched his hand back.

Rigg used the momentum of his grab to propel Talisco’s own wrist, with all his own strength added, into a smashing blow of the fetter against Talisco’s forehead. That was the surprise Father had warned him needed to be enough.

Assuming that it had been enough to stun Talisco, Rigg instantly made a great show of losing his balance, flinging his left arm free of the soldier holding him and getting behind the now-unconscious Talisco so no one else could grab the man. With another shove—disguising it as best he could by crying “help” and flailing his arms—he got Talisco’s limp body over the rail, which dragged Rigg over as part of the same movement.

He could feel that he still had his pants, though they were around his ankles now. Before they hit the water, Rigg was doubling over to lay hands on the belt, and as they splashed into the brown stream, he was already working the tongue of the clasp into the keyhole of the lock.

The weight of the leg irons dragged them straight down. By the time they hit the bottom of the river, Rigg’s right hand was free. He doubled over and freed his ankle.

But that was not enough. He was not making an escape the way Loaf and Umbo had done. Nor did he want Talisco to die—if he could bring it off, he had a use for him. So he continued to hold his breath as he opened Talisco’s leg and wrist fetters, letting the iron drop. Now both of them were weighed down only by their clothes. Rigg stepped on one of his trouser-legs and pried his legs free. Then, being a strong swimmer, he dragged the limp man up to the surface.

When his head bobbed up into the air, Rigg gasped a quick breath and then worked to get Talisco’s head above water. “Help!” Rigg cried. “Talisco’s drowning!”

The boat had already stopped and the rivermen were poling it upstream. In moments Rigg had Talisco at the side. General Citizen sharply commanded them to forget Talisco and get the boy.

“I’m the only thing holding him up!” Rigg shouted savagely, using his authority voice, and sure enough, the soldiers and rivermen obeyed him instinctively and took the weight of Talisco. At that point, Rigg scrambled back up onto the deck almost without assistance, so he was able to watch as they dragged Talisco over the rail and laid him on the deck.

Talisco obviously wasn’t breathing.

“Take that boy inside again!” ordered General Citizen.

“Not till I get that man breathing again!” Rigg counter-ordered, and again his voice of command worked well enough that the soldiers who had been reaching for him hesitated. In that moment, Rigg flung himself onto Talisco’s unconscious body and started working on him as Father had taught all the children in Fall Ford to do.

The rivermen had their own method, which involved turning a drowned man upside down and hitting his back with oars or poles. Apparently the victims of that process recovered often enough that the men up and down the river kept on doing it. What Rigg was doing—pressing on Talisco’s chest to eject the water and then clamping his mouth over Talisco’s and forcing air down his throat—was not something they had seen before. Some of the rivermen were shouting for him to get out of the way so they could paddle the man back to life.